Anthropic wants a bigger raise than SpaceX and will not say what it is worth

Anthropic is privately working towards an initial public offering that matches or exceeds the $75bn SpaceX raised in June, the largest share sale on record, and hopes to file publicly as soon as the end of this month, according to people familiar with its plans cited by Bloomberg ^[1][2][3]. In recent investor briefings led by chief financial officer Krishna Rao, executives declined to be drawn on valuation ^[4].

That is an unusual order of operations. Offering size is normally the output of a price and a float, not the pitch itself. Leading with size and withholding the multiple lets Anthropic anchor on the superlative while leaving the arithmetic that dilutes existing holders unspecified. Bloomberg's sources say the discussions, including the size of the offering, are still ongoing and the plans could change ^[5].

The valuation, when it arrives, will be a forecast rather than a fact. TNW reported this week that a figure approaching $2tn rests on internal projections of $190bn to $200bn of revenue in 2028 ^[6], roughly three times the $65bn annualised run rate Anthropic reached at the end of July ^[7][1]. It would also be about double the $965bn valuation at which the company raised $65bn in May, a round that put it ahead of OpenAI's $852bn valuation from a $122bn raise in March ^[8][9][2].

The growth underneath is not in dispute: preliminary second quarter revenue passed $11.5bn against $787mn a year earlier, close to fifteen times ^[10][3]. Neither is the cost. Anthropic recorded a net loss of almost $42bn in 2025, about five times the $8.3bn it lost in 2024, though adjusted operating income was positive in the second quarter ^[11][12].

For scale, US IPOs have raised $160.6bn through 19 August against the record $195.2bn of 2021, a year-to-date total that already includes SK Hynix raising $26.5bn through American depositary receipts ^[13][14]. A single $75bn raise would be worth roughly 47 per cent of everything the US market has sold this year ^[4]. The SpaceX benchmark itself is also a customer relationship: Anthropic buys computing capacity from SpaceX under a three-year agreement that could be worth tens of billions ^[15]. And the $75bn headline understates its target, since SpaceX's proceeds are expected to reach $86.2bn if the overallotment option is exercised, about $11bn more ^[16][5].

Buyers of the paper would get limited influence over any of this. Anthropic is considering super-voting shares for chief executive Dario Amodei, who holds about 2 per cent of the company, and his co-founders, the same structure Elon Musk used to retain control of SpaceX ^[17][18].

Anthropic is, for now, ahead in the listing race. Both it and OpenAI have filed confidentially, and OpenAI is reportedly looking at 2027 because Sam Altman is holding out for a $1tn valuation that is not yet feasible ^[19][20].

Watch whether a public filing actually lands this month and whether a size range survives into it, or whether the number stays a private ambition. Watch the revolving credit facility, which Bloomberg's sources say is set to close above its roughly $10bn target, with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan working on the listing ^[21][22]. And watch whether the super-voting structure appears in the document, because that is the point at which the governance question stops being a consideration and becomes a term.